Popper: Knicks showing their true colors

The Knicks had every reason to give all they had Tuesday night in Los Angeles. And maybe that tells us all we need to know.

In the morning, Phil Jackson, the new team president, surfaced in the visitors' locker room, and when the game began he was in a luxury suite, observing first-hand the team he'd signed on to guide through its next phase of its transformation.

And you thought finding a place to stuff more seats into Madison Square Garden was ambitious?

This was a game in which the Knicks set out to prove their playoff hopes were real. Two days earlier, Mike Woodson, the lame-duck coach running out the string, insisted he finally had seen hints the team was beginning to resemble the 54-win team from a year ago, the kind of team the Knicks thought they would be again this season.

Instead, the Knicks unveiled for Woodson and Jackson a new level of play — as Jackson would call it in an interview with the New York Times, "Awful." The Knicks not only lost to a decimated Lakers squad with a lame-duck coach of their own in Mike D'Antoni, who is rumored to be on the way out. But they set records for futility along the way.

The Knicks surrendered 51 points in the third quarter — a record for the Lakers' offense (and the Knicks' defense). Think about that for a moment. The Lakers of Kobe Bryant and Shaquille O'Neal, of Wilt Chamberlain and Jerry West and Elgin Baylor, had never done this. But the Lakers of Chris Kamen, Xavier Henry and Kent Bazemore did it to the Knicks.

A 30-point quarter is bad defense. A 40-point quarter is a ridiculously hot shooting team. A 51-point quarter? That means you're not even trying.

Carmelo Anthony was asked how he could explain the effort.

"You can't," he said after the 127-96 loss."At this point [they're] no words you can put forth and say about how we played. I mean everybody saw it. We just didn't have the energy tonight, the focus tonight, and they did. They came out and played extremely well. They beat us the way they did."

Maybe it shouldn't be surprising anymore and we shouldn't be fooled. Consider this — from the point that the Knicks held a 17-point lead with more than five minutes left Friday in Philadelphia they have been outscored by a combined 53 points by a Sixers squad heading toward a historic losing streak, a Cavaliers team without its franchise player (Kyrie Irving) and a Lakers team without Kobe Bryant, Pau Gasol, Steve Nash or any player you'd want on your team.

Jeff Van Gundy, speaking on ESPN Radio on Wednesday at least found the bright side by noting, "If used correctly, it can be good for the Knicks. It doesn't sugarcoat, 'Oh well, we dropped a lot of games early, that's why we didn't make the playoffs.' No, we're not very good. That's the bottom line. We're not very good. How are we going to get a better roster?"

And maybe that's true. If Jackson was fooled from a distance, he got a good look Tuesday at exactly what he got himself into. Garden chairman James Dolan believed he had a championship team this season — a message he imparted to the team in September and a belief that will push Woodson out the door.

The five-year, $60 million deal Jackson took to head up the organization as team president may provide some solace as will his time spent in the L.A. sun. But his work is cut out for him.

"We're in a talent hunt," Jackson told the Times. "We have to bring in talent."

When Jackson took the job and was introduced just over a week ago, he said, "We're going to push this team, hopefully, and work into the playoffs this year and see how they really can compete. And make decisions from there going forward, who wants to play together, who looks like they can play together and how can we build on that. From there on, we'll just take a step at a time from there as we move forward."

The Knicks may not be out of the race mathematically yet, but they have assured themselves of a losing season with 42 losses — the first losing season of Anthony's career and the first for the Knicks in four years. When the embarrassment against the Lakers was over, the Knicks were three games out of the eighth and final playoff berth with just 11 games remaining — and facing a tougher 11 games than any of the two games that they had just blown.

Just as well that they don't make it. No need to fool anyone anymore, especially not Jackson who got the close-up look at what Knicks fans have had to witness all season long.